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Doctors say crowded, aging Penticton hospital heading toward crisis

A group of 120 doctors, surgeons and specialists has issued a statement saying Penticton Regional Hospital is suffering from massive overcrowding and outdated facilities.

Photograph by: Handout
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A group of 120 family physicians, surgeons and specialists is demanding a long-promised upgrade to the Penticton Regional Hospital, saying it is suffering from massive overcrowding and outdated facilities.

Dr. David Paisley, a spokesman for the group, said the provincial government needs to follow through on an expansion that’s been in the planning stages for a decade and would include a new patient care tower.

“We have patients in the corridors and in areas that were not designed for in-patient care,” he said.

Many of the rooms remaining for surgical procedures are cramped and were not designed for that purpose, he said. “The room is so small and narrow, the specialist has to turn the gurney diagonally in the room to get enough space to do the procedure with their instrument.”

Paisley said the hospital has been first on the Interior Health Authority’s official priority list for major upgrades, but expansions amounting to more than $400 million are going ahead in Vernon, Kamloops and Kelowna ahead of it.

Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid confirmed the Penticton hospital is at the top of the list, but said renovations at the other facilities can be done in phases, making them more financially feasible. By comparison, most of the $300-million Penticton project would have to be done in one shot.

The Penticton hospital was built in 1951 to serve 10,000 people but now caters to an aging population of 90,000 residents in the southern Interior.

“Like a busy plastic surgeon, our administration has been doing nip and tuck all over to be able to accommodate the increase in services ... and the population increase,” Paisley said. “We are running on 108 per cent capacity, regularly having to discharge people before they are ready. This is getting worse with each year.

“If we are not able to get this project approved now, we are looking at a crisis.”

MacDiarmid, who toured the facility with doctors and residents late last year, said she knows people in Penticton are frustrated.

“We are going to do it. We absolutely are going to do it,” she said.

But she could not give a specific date or year for when the project will receive funding, pointing to budget pressures: “I know they wish that I would just say to them, ‘Here’s the start date and here’s where we are.’ But we don’t do that until we have everything ironed out.”

Penticton Mayor Dan Ashton said the Okanagan Similkameen regional district has already set aside roughly $30 million of the $120 million it is prepared to contribute toward the $300-million project.

In addition, the Penticton Regional Hospital foundation has raised $20 million, Paisley said, noting that leaves only leaving $160 million for the province to pick up.

He said the “worst case scenario is if the government only gives us part of the project as that would be a slap in the face for all the hard work done by the locals.”

Ashton said the need for the new facility is exacerbated by the fact that the number of people in the hospital’s “draw area” doubles in the summer. And he noted several thousand additional year-round residents are expected due to plans for a new provincial correctional centre south of Penticton and expanded mining operations near Princeton.

The new patient care tower would include state-of-the-art medical technology, a helipad and a teaching area for medical students — key to retaining talent, Paisley said.

The doctors have called a town-hall meeting for Feb. 13 to discuss the issue with area residents.

Said Paisley: “Is there any severe impairment in patient care? Right now, no. But if we don’t do something soon, we’ll have a major problem. It comes as a bit of a shock when we’ve been doing our best and better, and yet we’ve been overlooked.”

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